Techniques for Robust Imputation in Incomplete Two-Way Tables

We describe imputation strategies resistant to outliers, through modifications of the simple imputation method proposed by Krzanowski and assess their performance. The strategies use a robust singular value decomposition, do not depend on distributional or structural assumptions and have no restrictions as to the pattern or missing data mechanisms. They are tested through the simulation of contamination and unbalance, both in artificially generated matrices and in a matrix of real data from an experiment with genotype-by-environment interaction. Their performance is assessed by means of prediction errors, the squared cosine between matrices, and a quality coefficient of fit between imputations and true values. For small matrices, the best results are obtained by applying robust decomposition directly, while for larger matrices the highest quality is obtained by eliminating the singular values of the imputation equation.